Nest

playground drama

duck nest under the slide

brave mama

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

 

Choices

 

we teach the wrong things:

task completion, not passion

test taking, not joy

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

We've got seven weeks left, and I'm focusing as much as possible on passion and joy. Our newest fun: about 1/4 of the class is learning a new language using the DuoLingo app. 

Together

 

nervous, excited

first day at school...in April

together at last

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Lunch

Lunch

When Grandma was a girl
she sometimes walked home from school for lunch.
She remembers grilled cheese and tomato soup,
kidney beans and cheese on toast,
peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

Now that school is in my house,
I eat lunch at home every day.
I like to eat the same thing I did at school --
pretzels and a cheese stick, veggies and a fruit.
Keeping lunch the same helps me remember the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was loud and messy.
I traded pretzels for bites of sushi or mini Oreos.
After lunch was recess. I miss recess --
the swings, the big toy, even the muddy soccer field.
I even miss indoor recess.

Sitting on my porch
eating my not-a-school-lunch
at home-is-now-school,
I close my eyes in the sun, listen to the birds,
and remember everything I miss about school.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Fifth Grade Lessons

Fifth Grade Lessons

You're
only
eleven
and you're learning
life requires you to
(first and foremost) show up.
Read directions, do your best,
ask for help, give help when you can.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Never take "ordinary" for granted.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

School Work

Photo via Unsplash

Christmas Day school work

piles sorted, dross recycled

enough for today

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Haiku-ish

Photo via Unsplash

avocado toast

(practice mindfulness)

four days until winter break

(sipping my hot tea)

new student today

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

And for the other side of the story, this beautiful response haiku by Amy LV:

Honey Nut Cheerios

 (a little scared) 

four days until winter break 

(drinking orange juice) 

will my new teacher be kind?

©Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, 2018

High Flight

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
~Kevin Durant


High Flight

The last day of school is in sight. You can’t imagine how hard

it is to release my masterpieces, say goodbye to my best work.

Launching you, I imagine the sigh of wing-beats

as you fly away, soaring with your talent,

your sense of humor, your desire to set the world right. When

you alight again next fall, don’t you dare hide your talent,

head under wing, letting others lead. Genius doesn’t

need adult plumage to rise and spiral. All genius needs is work.

And remember, the work of flight is joyful, not hard.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Word Game Wednesday

Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is not path and leave a trail.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Word Game Wednesday

What would you like to do?

Play Word Around? Rhyme Out? Bananagrams? Do not

dawdle; find a group and go

tinker with words! Play Scrabble; observe where

the

words intersect, criss-crossing a path

of letters that may

lead

to unexpected mergers. Perhaps go

online instead

and play Free Rice, where

you earn kernels of rice for nuggets of knowledge. There

is

no

guarantee, but Word Game Wednesday could have been the path

that led us to be homophone, homonym, and

homograph hunters. Words open the world. Using them, we leave

a

splendiferous trail.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Poetry Friday

Whatever you are, be a good one.  ~Abraham Lincoln

Poetry Friday

Pick a poem about whatever

captivates you –

endangered animals, a hotdog car, dinosaurs, or ants – you are

in charge of choosing and practicing. Be

an attentive audience for others. Then, be a

positively excellent performer. Make us sigh, or laugh and say, “Good

one!”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Collaboration

We all have the same roots and we are all branches of the same tree.  ~Aang (in Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Collaboration

Testing means work silently (all by yourself) but we

are accustomed to collaboration. We know we are all

smarter when we work together, but we have

to take the

test alone. It is not the same

as (all those times) when we discovered how our (very different) roots

could lead us to common understanding. Testing is too quiet and

the air is filled with tension. We

struggle silently (on our own) until we are

all finished. At last we get our voices back and we are all

of us (once again) like branches

(grafted from many nations and cultures) of

the

(strong enough to support us all and tested by time) same

(collaboration makes us all smarter) tree.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Outdoor Recess

Unsplash photo by Noah Silliman

teacher gladly trades

wintery temperatures 

for outdoor recess

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Tradition

in this moment

past holds hands with future

tradition

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Indoor Recess Season

temperatures plummet

teachers prepare for long haul 

indoor recess season 

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Class Crud

stomach flu, pinkeye

sinus drainage, rattling cough --

hands chapped from washing

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Found Object Poem Project -- In Excess

photo by Jan Annino Godown

In Excess

The elementary school lost and found:
a regurgitation of hats,
mismatched gloves,
jackets thrown off and left behind
after a warmish winter recess.

Is this where it all starts?
Is this what leads to
eternal cereal aisles in the grocery store,
suburban sprawl,
and industrial laundry bins full of unread manuscripts?

Is this the price we pay
for wanting more out of life
rather than living in satisfaction with
enough?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016

Found Object Poem Project -- Tracks

photo by me

Tracks

Under each of his
uncut fingernails is a
half-moon of black.

No fewer than twelve
jangling keychains
hang from his backpack.

He returns from the library
joy on his face
hugging his new stack.

After twenty-two weeks
his brave facade
is cracked.

Hugs:
unsolicited
payback.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

Number 27

Welcome, new friend!

You have come to the right place--

you are one of us.

©Mary Lee Hahn 2015

Migration Rearguard

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Leroy Andersen

Migration Rearguard

a squadron of geese

invaded the soccer field

yanked grass, dropped land mines

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

The End

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Sarah Browning

THE END

Just when the story's getting good,
I must close the book and return it
to the rightful owner.

I have marked up the text a bit:
underlined key phrases,
jotted notes in the margins.

I've dogeared some pages,
left smears of optimism,
streaked whole paragraphs with my tears,

slept with the book under my pillow,
taken it with me everywhere,
thrown it at the wall in frustration (on more than one occasion).

You'd think by now I would have learned to live
with never knowing the ends of these stories.
I have not.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015



There are just a few more days of school left, and I am getting ready to say goodbye, in most cases forever, to the people who have been my life for the past 9 months -- this crazy, quirky bunch of students who bloomed late, but bloomed GLORIOUSLY.